Howard forced Tony to accept the directorship of Stark Industries, causing him, regrettably, to leave JT to Josey alone, who broke up with him in order to build the company, but died in a plane crash. Saddened, Stark devoted to his inventions, and put his love life away. Years later, Howard would die, after starting a new creation with Tony based on nanotechnology.[4]

Ultimates

Spurred by the discovery of a brain tumor[5], Tony decided to make the most of whatever time he had left, and began doing more charitable good works and decided to start an heroic career, using his latest invention based on nanotechnology, the Iron Man Armor. He relocated to his Manhattan property and agreed to join the Ultimates, a S.H.I.E.L.D.-sponsored superhero team, as Iron Man.[6]

Tony began dating teammate Natasha Romanova and eventually proposed to her, creating a new armor for her as an engagement gift; however, when a traitor within the ranks helped an army of foreign Super-Soldiers defeat the Ultimates, Natasha was apparently revealed as the traitor when she turned on Tony during the assault, killing Tony's good friend, and butler, Jarvis. Tony turned the tables on her, using the nanites he had given Natasha to control the armor against his former lover, paralyzing her and downloading information direct from her brain to his.[7]

Tony Stark

Stark left his penthouse in an old model suit of armor similar to the ones used by the Rocketmen. Though his support staff believed that he was heading to Washington, D.C. to battle the Liberators, Stark instead set a course for an orbiting satellite. He reappeared in D.C. a short time later in a massive airborne weapons platform called Iron Man Six. With the new armor, Stark made short work of the airborne forces of the Liberators and destroyed most of the Crimson Dynamo mobile dolls. After the battle, Stark agreed to finance the now privately practicing Ultimates, and very quickly got over Natasha's betrayal with the help of a pretty blonde.[7]

Ultimates 3

Tony brought the Ultimates into his home, using it as their base, and supplying all their needs. One of the Ultron bots, a robot designed by Hank Pym as butlers and servants, had become evil, falling in love with the Scarlet Witch. Ultron had killed the Scarlet Witch after realizing he/it would never have her to himself. Drugging Tony, Ultron took over the Iron Man persona, creating a brand new suit, all the while holding Stark in a tank, while creating new robotic versions of the Ultimates as they were in the prime of their lives. Tony was able to escape, thanks to Wasp and Ant-Man. Tony acquired a suit from James Rhodes, and helped the Ultimates fight Magneto and the Ultron bots. Unfortunately, Magneto snapped when his son, Quicksilver, was apparently killed during the fight.

Iron Man battling foes during the Armor Wars

Ultimatum

Magneto, in response to the death of his children, shifted the Earth's axis, causing world-wide devastation. New York was demolished by a huge tidal wave, which also destroyed Tony's home, and killed millions, including some heroes, in the process (e.g. Wasp, Daredevil, etc.). Tony, who was saved by his suit, rescued Captain America, and the two went looking for survivors. Cap fell unconscious, and Tony was forced to bring Cap to the Triskelion, where Cap was met with immediate help. Magneto's goons, the Multiple Men, were causing havoc outside the Triskelion, each strapped with a bomb. Iron Man helped as much as he could to stop Madrox, but it was a suicidal for Hank Pym who killed them all, allowing all of them to crawl over his body, and then walk into the seas, waiting for the stupid Madroxs to blow themselves up, killing all of them, and Pym. Tony and the Ultimates traveled to Magneto's base, where Wolverine immediately attacked. Before Wolverine could kill Magneto, Magneto took control of Cyclops' lenses, and Iron Man's suit, forcing the two to blast Wolverine. Magneto then easily killed the melted hero. As Magneto was later killed, Tony was about to meet an all new adventure.

Post-Ultimatum and the Armor Wars

Tony traveled to the destroyed building that once was Stark Industries, where he went to a secret underground facility. There, he met Justine Hammer, a woman looking for nanofleets to put in her blood to help her survive her father's experiments on her. He also later met the Ghost, who had stolen a remnant very sacred to Tony. Tony teamed up with Justine to take down the Ghost, but first, solve the problem about who had secretly stolen Tony's Iron Man technology. Traveling all across Europe, from Prague, to England, Tony fell in love with Justine. Finding that the England riot police had used his tech to create Riot suits, Tony was outraged, and attacked the police. The police managed to force Stark to run away. Tony met the Ghost again, who blasted Tony into the river, where water flooded into his damaged helmet. The Police took Tony out of the river, bringing him to Justine. Justine and Tony made love, and Tony asked her to stay with him, which she agreed to. They were interrupted by an explosion outside their jet. Tony got into his ruined suit, and went to meet two giant Iron Men who blasted Tony until he finally was defeated, his suit utterly destroyed. The robots brought Tony to a base in a stranded desert, where Tony met his delusional Grandfather, Howard Stark Sr. Howard was in charge of the Ghost, the robots, and Justine, and was looking for an upgrade in his organic, giant, old suit. Howard had the remnant that the had Ghost stolen and wanted Tony to open it. Tony used a quote by Richard Feynman, and the box opened. Inside the box was the dead head of Tony Stark (Earth-242). Tony explained he got the head while looking at other universes with Reed Richards. The entire Earth was on fire, so he took the head of his counterpart. Tony explained that, while he had upgraded himself for safety, the head shut down Nanofleets, and killed machinery. Immediately, Ghost exploded, Howard was killed, the robots exploded, and Justine died. Tony then sat alone, stating "Lucky me", in a depressed tone. Tony was later in Berlin, drinking with the head, crying in an extremely depressed state.

New team, new armor

New Ultimates

Returning to the Triskelion, and under S.H.I.E.L.D. command, Tony became the leader of the New Ultimates, wearing a new slimmer suit after his original was destroyed. While in the field, Carol Danvers, S.H.I.E.L.D. leader, presented herself as the boss of Tony and the team, things were much different in the bedroom, as Tony and Carol began a sexual relationship. One night, Tony was with Hawkeye, discussing the changes after Ultimatum. Tony made it very clear that he had lost practically everything because of Ultimatum. Suddenly, the Defenders, a teenage wannabe superhero team arrived, but as supervillains. As the rest of team came to aid Iron Man and Hawkeye in the fight, the Defenders left with what they came for: Mjolnir. This allowed Loki to teleport back to Earth to resume his chaos. Carol Danvers revealed to Tony that she had one of the Defenders, Hellstorm, working undercover.

Training Spider-Man

When the Ultimates didn't knew what to do with Spider-Man, Carol Danvers proposed to train him, Iron Man was one of his tutors and helped him to fight Mysterio at SoHo.

The Hall of Armors

Vampire Wars

During the attack of the-now-turned-vampires Stick, Daredevil and Nerd Hulk along an army of vampires, Stark was seriously damaged and taken to a hospital by Captain America and Thor.

Avengers vs. New Ultimates

Stark recovered really fast from his wounds and was able to fight War Machine in a new armor. While attending to his brother's funeral, Tony is invited by Jonathan Blackhaven to be part of the secret Kratos Club, a group of industrial multimillionaires, whose goal is to use their influence to ensure that the right things get done, no matter what.

Death of Spider-Man

Return to The Ultimates

With new global problems rising, the Ultimates returned, and Iron Man as a part of it. Tony used a new device for remote access to the armor, and tried to prevent a military conflict between Uruguay and Argentina. A ghost ship equipped with a atomic bomb made in Stark Industries was detonated in Montevideo (Uruguay's capital city) and the Iron Man armor made a short cut, affecting Tony himself. Jarvis assisted Stark with electronic shocks and Tony was brought back. Using a transportable Iron Man armor, Tony went to aid Thor when Asgard was destroyed at the hands of the Children of Tomorrow.

Due to Thor being powerless, Tony provided him with a new and upgraded version of his old Super-Soldier suit, with which Thor was powered again and battled the Children of Tomorrow along with the other Ultimates.

Thinking about the Kratos Club as responsible of the Uruguaian massacre, Tony went to Paris and faced them, but couldn't do anything as they stated it was only for their benefit.

Soon before the Children nuked Washington, D.C., the President activated the "Winter Protocols", making agent Marvin Flumm the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D., who ordered to hunt down the Ultimates and bring them to him. Tony managed to escape from the Stark Tower along Thor, but at the same time his brain tumor reappeared.

After S.H.I.E.L.D. convinced Zorn and the Hulk to attack the Children (but the latter convinced to help them), the Maker deployed an anti-matter attack on Washington, D.C., killing the President, his Cabinet and the Congress, with only Secretary of Energy Howard surviving and becoming the next President and activating the Winter Protocols, forcing the Ultimates to hand over to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, only Tony Stark and Thor managed to escape. Tony contacted the new President to make a plan against the Children, Stark was provided as a prisoner for the Children to seal a pact of peace.[8]

When Richards was about to vivisect Stark, Tony's self-conscious technology interfacer brain tumor named Anthony convinced the City to rebel against the Maker because of his master's counter-evolutionary acts of war and allowed Anthony to create a giant Iron Man Armor and use it against Richards and become the new leader of the Children. Richards defended himself using a Giant-Man serum on the Hulk, but he was finally defeated by Sue Storm and presumably handed over to S.H.I.E.L.D.[9]

Divided We Fall

When the Ultimates decided to face the Nimrod Sentinel invasion in the country, Tony created a new armor to face this evil. He helped Captain America and Thor to destroy a rogue Sentinel in New Mexico, and stop the people that were controlling it. He also disarmed the New Republic of Texas by threatening one of the members of its government into giving him the nuke's codes, and then giving said codes to Anthony, who disarmed the nuke in the nick of time. Iron Man is also helping out Kitty Pryde and the mutants. Kitty Has showed Iron Man some mutant plants that can change the world and she wants to show the world.

Iron Man was present during the battle for Wyoming against Hydra and Modi in which the Ultimates were triumphant.[10]

Tony's new identity

Reconstruction and Disassembled

After the United States was saved from a civil war, Tony felt that a reconstruction of the country was needed, he created a new identity of Iron Patriot in order to boost the morality of American people.[11]

After facing new threats such as Hydra and the appearance of the West Coast Ultimates, Tony returned to his "Iron Man" identity. He was present during a meeting in which Invisible Woman informed S.H.I.E.L.D. about the Infinity Gems she had been gathering along Thor, and the moment in which the mysterious Kang freed both Hulk and Reed Richards from the Triskelion, stole the Gems and formed along them and Quicksilver the Dark Ultimates. The Ultimates barely escaped, but Captain America decided to be left behind in order to stop the villains, although he was defeated.[12]

Stark incorporeal

Stark started working in one of his secret warehouses on a way to stop Richards, Anthony unsuccessfully tried to remove a encrypted code from Stark's armors, and Tony created a gauntlet to control the Power Gem. Stark was attacked by Quicksilver, who came to collect the latest discovery of the Dark Ultimates, that one of the remaining gems was inside Tony Stark's brain.[13] The Maker performed a surgery on Stark's brain while his H.E.R.B.I.E. Trons were trying to reach the Earth's core in order to acquire the final gem. Richards finally got the last gem, and left Tony Stark to die.[14]

Richards copied Stark's brain waves in order to access to the Iron Man Armory. But it was revealed Stark's consciousness survived electronically, he managed to get into Reed's systems secretly, starting a plan to defeat the Dark Ultimates by freeing the Ultimates from the Negative Zone. He also assembled a new Iron Man armor from the remains of his armory.[15] When he confronted Richards, Tony explained that the radiation of the gem in his brain altered his neural network, and made it "plug and play". Iron Man confronted Reed along with the rest of the Ultimates, but the Maker's cavalry arrived in the form of Kang wielding the final gem, who also revealed herself as being the Sue Storm from a near future.[16]

During a furious battle against Reed Richards and his Dark Ultimates, Tony managed to acquire the Infinity Gems and depower The Maker. Tony first used the gems to revive his corpse and transfer his consciousness back to his body. When he was about to face Richards, an immense flux of energy echoed through time and space and the Gems were destroyed. Kang stated that what she tried to prevent just happened, and she left stating she would try to go back further in time.

Unknown to them, the flux of energy had brought a powerful being known as Galactus from another universe to this one, and it started approaching Earth.[17] The Ultimates faced Galactus with the loss of Captain America and Thor, but managed to defeat the cosmic entity and exile it to the Negative Zone, saving Earth.[18] In the end of the crisis, and without Thor and Cap, Tony decided to disband the Ultimates.[19]

Final Incursion

Based on the concept of the defunct Fantastic Four, Iron Man founded a team of geniuses along with the Invisible Woman, called the Future Foundation.[20] The team managed to save the universe from an ever-increasing amount of rifts in time-space,[21] but all of reality would ultimately come to an end due to a different phenomena known as incursions.

The incursions caused realities to crash with each other, with the central point being each universe's planet Earth, and the final one pitted Earth-1610 against Earth-616. Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. were led to believe by the Maker that their universe had a chance at surviving by destroying the colliding alternate planet Earth. Iron Man assisted the S.H.I.E.L.D. army which attempted to destroy the alternate Earth, and deployed the Iron Man Six, but said weapon was neautralized by the Guardians of the Galaxy. In the end, the two realities collided, and Iron Man died together with his universe.[22]

Return

Iron Man and his fellow Ultimates were resurrected by the Maker when he rewrote the Multiverse in order to merge all realities into one to help Eternity fight the First Firmament.[23] When the Ultimates from the Prime Earth arrived on Counter-Earth and confronted the Maker for his actions, which were actually giving the First Firmament the upper hand against Eternity, Iron Man and his teammates were ordered by him to attack the other Ultimates, and kill them if possible. Iron Man didn't want to fight and tried to act as a peacemaker, but Captain America made that difficult. Eventually, the members of both teams realized they shouldn't be fighting each other, and worked together to help Eternity gain the strength to finally defeat the First Firmament. After that, Iron Man and the other Ultimates decided to travel the Multiverse to hunt down the Maker.[24]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

After his mind was irradiated by an Infinity Gem, Stark's neural network was able to interact directly with electronic systems, being possibly one of the first manifestations the creation of Anthony.

Computer Interface: Stark can communicate and interact with other computer systems.[15]

Program Transmitter: Tony can project his memory/personality system into other computers and duplicate himself, being able to control one of his armors in New York City at the same time he was manipulating a H.E.R.B.I.E. Tron in the Negative Zone.[16]

When using an Iron Man armor, Tony acquires superhuman strength, durability, and flight. And also:

Repulsor rays: A beam of energy which can disintegrate objects at the range of the diameter of the ray.

Light Negativity provides cloaking.

Deflector dish emits a force-field.

Neuro-scrambler

Force Bubble to capture foes.

Genetic lock attempts to cut off superpowered beings from their powers.

Thought scramblers temporarily shuts down all mental functions.

Tony also possesses nanites in his blood which allowed him to control his armor, along with any other type of technology, defuse bombs, pick locks, and can come together to form a monitor device.

When his body was killed by Reed Richards, Tony temporarily became a non-physical entity which could manifest itself via computer systems,[15] which have him the ability of being a:

Construct: Because Tony possessed no human body, and he was hosted in a computer network, Tony required no food, water, or oxygen to survive and thus was also immune to poisons and diseases.

Abilities

Strength level

Class 100; while in the armor, Tony as Iron Man can lift at least 100 tons. Formerly, and without the armor, Tony had the strength of normal human of his age and height who engages in regular exercise.